9

Zhu Xi and Liberal Education

“LEARNING FOR THE SAKE OF ONE’S SELF”

The thought of Zhu Xi begins and ends with the aim of “learning for the sake of one’s self,” or, more simply, “learning to be oneself” (weiji zhi xue), a phrase that recalls Confucius’s dictum in the Analects (14:25) that learning should be for the sake of oneself and not for the pleasing of others. This aim, which set a higher value on self-understanding and self-fulfillment than on all else, was put before Zhu early in life by his father. It was what motivated his studies under his teacher Li Tong (1093–1163), what guided him in official life, and what stayed with him to the end of his scholarly career. For many of his later followers, it was what distinguished true Confucian teaching from any other.

Confucianism was a way of learning, and Zhu Xi was a teacher above all else. Indeed, so integral was education to Zhu’s philosophy as a whole that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. In this chapter, I shall try to explain Zhu’s thought on “learning for the sake of one’s self,” his views on voluntarism in popular education, and in what sense his social and cultural definition of higher education may be seen as “liberal.” In the next chapter, I shall attempt to show how he expressed a distinctive Neo-Confucian personalism in political and cultural life.

In 1148, at the age of eighteen, Zhu passed the civil-service examinations at the capital and won the advanced (jinshi) degree. He was already a success by the standards of the age, having achieved the goal coveted by most educated men in Song China but not often attained by them so early in life. Soon thereafter, he received his first appointment to office as a subprefectural registrar in the Tong-an district of Fujian, where his varied duties included responsibility for the local school and presented him with the occasion to address the students there. “Learning should be for the sake of oneself,” he said, “but in today’s world what fathers encourage in their sons, what older brothers exhort in their younger brothers, what teachers impart to their students, and what students all study for is nothing more than to prepare for the civil-service examinations.” Then he urged that they should aspire to emulate the ancients’ “learning for the sake of oneself” instead of “studying for the sake of others,” meaning that they should aim at understanding and fulfilling their own true selves rather than let their studies be directed toward winning the approval of the official examiners.1

Later, in 1175, when he and Lu Zuqian compiled Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu), in the important section on the “Pursuit of Learning,” which sets forth the overall aims of the work, they cited Cheng Yi’s amplification of Confucius’ remark: “‘In ancient times one studied for the sake of oneself,’ that is, Cheng said, to find it in oneself (zide); ‘nowadays one studies for the sake of others,’ that is, in order to gain recognition from others.”² Here, Cheng Yi’s reference to “finding it in oneself” echoes Mencius’s doctrine that “the noble man steeps himself in the Way because he wishes to find it in himself. When he finds it in himself, he will be at ease in it; when he is at ease in it, he can draw deeply upon it; when he can draw deeply upon it, he finds its source wherever he turns. That is why the noble man wishes to find the Way in himself.”³ Here, “learning for the sake of one’s self” is explained in terms of finding the Way in oneself and deriving deep inner satisfaction from it.

Later, in commenting on the original passage in the Analects, Zhu Xi again referred to Cheng Yi’s comment that “when the ancients studied for their own sake, it led in the end to the fulfillment of others; nowadays studying for the sake of others leads in the end to the destruction of oneself,”4 an observation Zhu Xi praises highly for its aptness and succinctness.⁵ Further, in the Essential Meaning of the Analects (Lunyu jingyi), Zhu includes commentaries from other Song masters that explain the meaning of “for the sake of oneself” (wei ji) as “being true to oneself,” “rectifying the mind and making the will sincere,” and as not ending in self-love but taking self-cultivation as the starting point for reaching out to others.⁶ In these ways, Zhu distinguishes true selffulfillment from mere selfish satisfaction, identifying the latter with self-destruction and the former with the fulfillment of others.

Zhu Xi returns to the same theme in chapter 6 of the Things at Hand, which deals with the “Regulation of the Family.” At the very outset of this discussion of the family, he points to the primacy of moral relations in learning for the sake of one’s self, again quoting Cheng Yi: “Master Yi-chuan said, ‘If young people have energy to spare after the performance of their moral responsibilities, they may study arts and literature [making reference to Analects 1:6]. If they do not perform their moral duties, and study literature and art first, this is not “Learning for the sake of one’s self” (weiji zhi xue).’”⁷ Here, a certain tension is set up between moral learning and the pursuit of art and literature, at least to the extent that the latter might lead to neglect of the former.

Toward the end of his fitful and frustrating official career, on the very eve of his official condemnation for heterodoxy, Zhu visited the Jade Mountain Academy (Yushan xueyuan). The lecture that he gave on that occasion later became celebrated as one of the most authoritative statements of his mature position in philosophical and educational matters. He began it on the same theme with which he had launched his educational efforts as a fledgling official in Tong’an many years before:

I have heard that “in ancient times one studied for the sake of oneself; nowadays one studies for the sake of others.” Therefore the sages and worthies, in teaching men to pursue learning, did not have them patch together speeches or compose literary pieces simply with a view to obtaining civil service degrees and official emoluments. Only “recognizing things, extending knowledge, making the will sincere, rectifying the mind, and further extending these to regulating the family, ordering the state and pacifying the world,” can be considered correct learning.8

In this brief passage, Zhu summed up many of the ideals of his age and of the educational philosophy he had developed over a lifetime: the “correct learning” (zhengxue), which had been the dominant ideal of Northern Song reformers; the “learning of the sages and worthies,” which in the Cheng Zhu school was to be increasingly encapsulated in the “Great Learning”; and “learning for the sake of oneself,” which Zhu saw as both beginning and end of all the rest. Early and late, Zhu had put this moral and spiritual “learning” forward as a genuine alternative to the spurious literary learning for the civil-service examinations and had also, in citing Cheng Yi, espoused it in opposition to any pursuit of art and literature at the expense of moral learning. Later in the Yuan dynasty, when the issue of resuming the examinations arose in the court of Khubilai, those who supported the idea were known as the “literary party,” while the followers of Zhu Xi who spoke in opposition to it were said to have advocated “learning for the sake of one’s self.”⁹ It was Zhu Xi schoolmen such as these who first established his works as basic texts in the school curriculum during the Yuan dynasty, again under the banner of “learning for the sake of one’s self.”¹⁰ Similarly, at the founding of the Yi dynasty in Korea, when the same issue arose with regard to the examination system, advocates of Neo-Confucianism attacked bureaucratic scholarship as “learning for the sake of others,” in contrast to Confucius’s “learning for the sake of one’s self.”¹¹

“SUBDUING ONESELF AND RELURNING TO DECORUM”

Another view of the self in Neo-Confucianism, and one that at first sight seems radically opposed to the one just presented, is found in Zhu Xi’s treatment of the theme “Subdue oneself and return to decorum” (keji fuli).

Here, Neo-Confucians understood ji in the negative sense of “selfishness” or “self-interest” rather than in the positive sense it has in learning for the “self,” while decorum represents the objective norms governing one’s relationships to society. As a member of society, the person must subordinate his selfish desires (siyu) to the good of the community or public good (gong). His true personhood is thus achieved by disciplining his desires so that they serve rather than conflict with the public good. Whether desires are seen as good or bad depends entirely on how they meet this test, just as self-fulfillment depends on how one overcomes this contradiction between the self and others.

Neo-Confucians often invoked the dictum of Confucius in Analects 12:1 in response to Yan Yuan’s question about perfect virtue or humaneness (ren):

Confucius said, “It is to subdue oneself and return to decorum. If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to decorum, all under Heaven will ascribe perfect virtue to him.” Yan Yuan then said, “May I ask what it consists in?” The Master replied, “Look not at what is contrary to decorum, listen not to what is contrary to decorum, speak not what is contrary to decorum, act not contrary to decorum.”

This classic definition of the concept of ren was given heightened significance by its central role in Neo-Confucianism and especially by the attention Zhu Xi gave to it in a key chapter of Things at Hand. This chapter has to do with self-examination and self-correction, the basic moral discipline that Zhu Xi focused on when he featured the Great Learning as a main text of instruction. The title of this chapter in Things at Hand is variously rendered in different versions, but as translated by Wing-tsit Chan it draws upon the edition of Ye Cai (fl. 1248), an early compiler of commentaries on this important manual of Neo-Confucian teaching. Ye’s title and description read:

On Self-discipline, 41 sections. In this chapter the effort to practice what one has learned is discussed. Having clearly investigated principles and having deeply preserved one’s mind and nourished one’s nature, one is about to extend one’s understanding and cultivation into personal practice. At this point one should devote the utmost effort to self-discipline.12

Here, Ye Cai’s explanation of the sequence of learning follows along the lines already given in Zhu Xi’s discussion of “learning for the sake of one’s self”; that is, self-understanding should be linked to one’s conduct toward others and does not stop with the self. Professor Chan’s translation of keji as “self-discipline” is in keeping with the general nature of the contents, with the emphasis in Neo-Confucianism on rational, moral control, and it is also in keeping with the tone of Ye Cai’s own description. Indeed, in the text itself keji is often equated with zizhi, “self-control.”

If I translate it, however, as “subduing oneself,” there are, I think, good reasons for this. For one thing, “subdue” is closer to the original sense of ke as “to conquer or subjugate.” For another, while the corollary fuli may fairly be rendered in the Neo-Confucian context as “return to decorum or propriety,” li has strong residual overtones of its original religious significance in ritual sacrifice, as the ritual order by which the members of the clan, community, or state were joined together, each in a manner befitting his own rank and status, in the service of the common cult. We must not dispense too quickly with the religious overtones of this key concept or yield to the modern taste for a moral and rational humanism at the expense of the traditional religious aspect, for the latter is strongly retained in Neo-Confucianism along with the rational and moral. It is in the original connotations of the terms that keji fuli preserves the distinct possibility for a deeper awareness of the problem of evil and of the need for a more radical testing of oneself, for a religiosity aspiring to self-transcendence through total self-conquest.

This becomes the more pertinent when one considers the number of later Neo-Confucians for whom this religiosity had a strong appeal, as well as those others for whom it was to become an abomination. Indeed, the essential ambivalence of Neo-Confucian teaching on this score is indicated by the cases of those who exhibited both of these manifestations in one life experience, first embracing the ritual with zealous intensity and then later repudiating it.13 Negative indications of this also came from protests in popular literature against a harsh ritual discipline prescribed in the name of Zhu Xi, which is far more repressive than simple self-discipline.

That “subduing the self and returning to decorum” could range from an enlightened practice of self-control to a religious experience of self-transcendence may be seen in Zhu’s quoting of Cheng Yi in chapter 5 of Things at Hand:

One’s first act is to see. If one looks at what is contrary to decorum, then, as the saying goes, whenever he opens his eyes, he makes a mistake. Hearing comes next, then speaking, then action, in proper sequence. If one can “subdue himself,” his mind will be broad and his heart generous, and his body will become big and be at ease. Looking up he will have no occasion for shame before Heaven, and below he will have no occasion to blush before men. We can understand how happy he will be. But if he lets up in his subduing of self for even a moment he will starve.¹⁴

From this it is evident that we are dealing with two selves (ji), not just one. There is the original, inner, and true self, and there is the self characterized by selfishness (jisi) or dominated by selfish intentions (siji). The control of the mind is not undertaken with a view to imposing some external restraint on an inherently evil self but on the contrary to liberate the original goodness of the inner self. Thus it is possible for both Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi to take an optimistic view of the process as leading to a self-enlargement and fulfillment in communion with others, and this has its outward, formal expression in the ritual order.

In the People’s Republic, there has been some discussion between Fung Yu-lan and Ren Jiyu as to whether Neo-Confucianism is a religion.¹⁵ Leaving that question aside as a matter of definition, we can say that Neo-Confucianism does speak to dimensions of human experience often seen as “religious,” which are not necessarily understood in the West as antithetical to liberal education.¹⁶ In any case, self-discipline has certainly been understood as “liberal” in the classic sense of bringing self-mastery, that is, of liberating one’s powers in the very act of developing and directing them.¹⁷

As noted above, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi see “subduing the self” through ritual as a process whereby the acceptance of certain limits and transcending them overcomes the distinction between self and others and joins one to a moral and spiritual community. Here, a radical individualism would seem to be ruled out, and what I would call a Confucian personalism takes its place—a concept of the person as most truly itself when most fully in communion with other selves.

SELF AND PERSON IN THE ELEMENTARY LEARNING

The implications of this personalism are further developed in Zhu Xi’s Elementary Learning (Xiao xue), a manual of ritual conduct for the young. It is a distinctively Neo-Confucian “classic” that illustrates the concept of self and practice of self-cultivation in orthodox Neo-Confucianism. Compiled in 1187 under the direction of Zhu Xi, it consists of passages drawn from the Confucian classics that Zhu thought should guide the education of the young preparatory to the program of higher learning set forth in the Great Learning. Thus the scriptural authority of the classics was invoked on behalf of Zhu Xi’s belief in the need for a structured education, an education that was to have a broad base among the young, extending down to the lowest levels of society. As the leading modern authority on this work, Uno Seiichi says, its underlying aim was to achieve “the governance of men through self-discipline” (xiuji zhiren). In other words, the ideal government is one that relies not on power but on universal self-discipline, which allows a maximum of local autonomy on the assumption that people will be self-governing. This is, of course, an extension of the central idea of the Great Learning, which asserts that peace and order depend on everyone, from the ruler down to the common people, taking self-cultivation (xiushen) as the basis of the social order. Zhu Xi develops this into one of the main themes of his own philosophy.18

The Elementary Learning consists of inner and outer portions, the former asserting basic principles drawn from the Confucian classics and the latter offering examples drawn from later history or literature. The inner portion is further subdivided into sections entitled “Setting up Instruction,” “Clarifying Moral Relations,” and “Reverencing the Person.” Xu Heng (1209–1281), the leading Neo-Confucian teacher of the Yuan period, admired and “believed in this book as if it were divine.”19 In his characteristic fashion, Xu wrote a succinct resume of its contents for the education of laymen, excerpts from which may serve conveniently here to convey the main points:

“Setting up Instruction” means the Way in which the sage-kings of the Three Dynasties taught men. The innate mind of man is originally without imperfection, but after birth through the interference of the physical endowment, the blinding desire for things and unrestrained selfishness, imperfections arise for the first time. The sages therefore set up instruction to help men nourish the original goodness of their innate minds and eliminate the imperfections which came from selfishness.…

What the early kings set up, however, was not simply their own idea. Heaven has its principles and the early kings followed these principles. Heaven has its Way and the early kings carried out this Way. Following the natural course of Heaven’s imperative they made it the proper course of human affairs and that was what was called instruction.…

What then is this Way? It is the moral relation between parent and child, prince and minister, husband and wife, elder and younger, friend and friend. Therein lies the Heaven-bestowed moral nature and the Way for man.…

“Clarifying Moral Relations”—“Clarify” means to make manifest. “Moral relations” means moral principles. In the moral nature endowed in man by Heaven each has his proper norm, as in the intimate love between parent and child, the moral obligation between prince and minister, the sex differentiation between husband and wife, the order of precedence among older and younger, and the relation of trust between friends. These are the natural relations.

In the Three Dynasties when the early kings established schools to teach all-under-Heaven, it was only to clarify and manifest these relations and nothing more. Men who cannot clarify these human relations cannot bring order into distinctions of noble and base, superior and inferior, important and unimportant, substantial and insubstantial, controlled and uncontrolled … and when it comes to this, disaster and disorder follow upon one another until everything lapses into bestiality.…

“Reverencing the Self or Person (shen)”—the preface [to this section] cites Confucius’ saying [in the Record of Rites] “The noble man is ever reverent.” To reverence the person is the important thing. The person is the branch [outgrowth] of parental love. How can one not reverence it? Not to reverence the person is to do violence to parental love. To do violence to parental love is to do violence to the trunk [of the tree of life]. Harm the trunk and the branch will die!

The sage uttered this as a warning. He who would be a man cannot for a single day depart from reverence. How much more should one reverence his own person, which is truly the trunk of all things and affairs? Err in this, and all things go awry. How could one then not be reverent?

Reverencing the person consists of four things: directing the mind, proper bearing, clothing, and food and drink. If the direction of the mind within is correct and one’s outer bearing is correct, then one has achieved the most substantial part of reverencing the person. Clothing and food are meant for the service of the person. If one does not control them properly and regulate them according to decorum, then what is meant to nourish man will, on the contrary, bring him harm.

We can distinguish among these by saying that the direction of the mind and proper bearing have to do with the cultivation of virtue [the moral nature], while clothing and food and drink have to do with subduing the self. Taking them together we can say that they are all essential to the reverencing of the person. Therefore it will not do if in the conduct of the relations between parent and child, prince and minister, husband and wife, older and younger, friend and friend, there is not this reverencing of the person. That is why the ancients insisted on reverence as the basis for the cultivation of the person.20

Recapitulated here are many ideas concerning the self and its cultivation that we encounter in Zhu Xi’s own writings and commentaries, but at least two main points stand out more clearly. The first is the interdependent character of human existence, establishing the primary human relations as the context of self-development.

This theme of the interrelatedness of human existence is reiterated in the discussion of the Five Relations of Moral Obligation, in which the self-development of the person is shown to be an outgrowth of his gradual assumption of responsibility for others with whom he has a loving relationship. This is hardly a new idea among Neo-Confucians, who had always spoken of the human mind as socially and morally conscious both in its origin and essence (as opposed to the enlightened mind of the Buddhists, which was supposedly free of personal attachments and human obligations). But Xu, following Zhu Xi, goes on to ground the process of socialization in the fundamental reality of creative love and to center it in the human person as the offspring of an intimate relation as deeply rooted and inviolable as life itself. Despite the defective logic of the opening quotation (which raised doubts in the minds of some commentators as to its authenticity),21 the passage from the Record of Rites about reverencing the person is given special weight by both Zhu Xi and Xu Heng, being the lead-off quotation for Zhu and the only one cited by Xu in his précis, as if to suggest that the very circularity of the argument conveys the sense of life as a sacred continuum of affective relations, from conjugal love to parental concern and filial devotion, all centering on respect for the personhood of the individual.

Thus Zhu and Xu structure the educational process in a concept of human personhood that avoids the polarization of individual versus society. As noted above, a common view of Neo-Confucianism has it relying heavily on conformity to ritual and repression of the individual within a system of hierarchical relations preserving the status quo. Xu, however, actually makes these relations subserve the development of the human personality, while the mind that is to direct this development has acquired its moral sensitivity through the experiencing of loving relations with others, not through subjection to cognitive disciplines and rote learning.

The second point is one easily recognized. The structure of the work, though it builds on the organic sense of life developed in the first two sections, culminates in the “Reverencing of Self.” Thus the Elementary Learning is essentially “learning for the sake of one’s self.” In the word “reverencing,” however, lies some significance. Aside from the supreme value it attaches to the development of the naturally good self, this concept is infused with the characteristic Neo-Confucian moral and religious spirit. Zhu Xi stresses it as an attitude of constant attentiveness to the moral and spiritual life of the individual, indispensable to the practice of mind-rectification and to “watchfulness over the solitary self.” But it is also a religious attitude of reverence toward all life, one that links the self to others and to the whole life process; it thus recognizes a religious dimension in the moral cultivation of the self, bridging the active and contemplative sides of human life.

In one important respect, however, the Elementary Learning served poorly to represent Zhu Xi’s view of the natural reciprocity in personal relations. Being addressed to the young as a primer preparatory to their taking up the higher learning, i.e., the Great Learning, it presented the parent-child relationship largely in terms of exemplary conduct on the part of the child.22 Subsequently, this text had an inordinate influence owing to the worshipful respect in which it was held by the early Neo-Confucians in the Yuan, especially Xu Heng. Thus a more one-sided emphasis came to be put on filiality in the child than Zhu had probably intended, and certainly more than can be found in the Four Books, to which he had given his primary attention and clearest sanction. Indeed, his more typical attitude was already expressed in his Responses of Yanping (Yanping dawen), wherein Zhu conveyed his teacher’s view that filiality, as explained by Confucius in the Analects (2:6), placed primary stress on parental love and concern as the basis for filiality, not on the obedience of the child.²³

POPULAR EDUCATION

Before we proceed from the Elementary Learning to the higher education dealt with in Zhu Xi’s exposition of the Great Learning, there is another side of primary education that deserves attention. Zhu’s experience of civil administration was mainly at the local level, and he saw education as properly woven into the fabric of institutional life at that level—not only in local schools, to which he gave great personal attention,24 but also in the organization and conduct of community affairs. He built libraries and had shrines erected to honor distinguished men of the locality who had exemplified qualities worthy of general emulation; for his students and subordinates, he provided guidance in the performance of rituals long since neglected in popular practice; he prepared proclamations for the moral edification of common people who might receive no other education. A representative example of the latter is the ten-point proclamation he issued in Zhangzhou (1190–1191). Without going into details here, the most notable general feature of the proclamation is its emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity, instead of the imposition of superior authority or law, as the basis for the proper conduct of public affairs. The appeal here is to a combination of self-respect and mutual regard among persons as the natural means of upholding a voluntaristic social order, which is seen as preferable to the enforcement of a system of state control.²⁵

This same approach is built into the community compact (xiangyue) that Zhu Xi adapted from one of the followers of Cheng Yi, Lu Dajun, as the basic “constitution” of a self-governing community. The ideal of voluntary cooperation that inspired this system is expressed in the term yue, a compact or contract entered into by members of a community for their mutual benefit. Most notable is the personalistic character of the contract, which places a stronger emphasis on mutual respect for the needs and aspirations of persons than on respect for property rights or an exact quid pro quo in the exchange of goods.

The main provisions of this compact called for mutual encouragement in the performance of worthy deeds, mutual admonition in the correction of errors and failings, reciprocal engagement in rites and customs, and mutual aid in times of distress and misfortune. Under each of these headings there were detailed specifications of the kinds of actions for which members of the compact took personal responsibility. There was also provision for the rotation of leadership within the group for carrying out the terms of the compact.²⁶

Here was a model for popular education in direct relation to the daily life of the community, a practical way of implementing basic Neo-Confucian principles in a context wider than kinship or personal relations. At a time that witnessed the steady extension and aggrandizement of state power, Zhu was not content simply to let public morality depend on the discipline of family life alone, or even on the five-family units of local organization (wubao); he sought to incorporate the principle of voluntarism into community structures that might mediate between state power and family interests.27 Thus he recommended a social program on the basis of which one might limit the intervention of the state in local affairs and share authority among more autonomous local units, relying on popular education and ritual observance as an alternative to punitive law. Underlying this program was the idea of personal self-transformation and communal cooperation as the basis of the polity, i.e., the fusion of public and private interests (gongsi yiti).²⁸ Other expressions of this attitude are to be found in the type of local instruction based on Zhu Xi’s own proclamations,²⁹ in the community granaries to which Zhu devoted much attention as a district official, and in the so-called Family Ritual of Zhu Xi.

Zhu’s treatment of these matters was extraordinarily detailed, showing a fine grasp of practical administration. It is not surprising that they should have become models for the implementation of his teachings in later times. Because these most authentic of Neo-Confucian institutions had their importance on the local level, however, often escaping the attention of modern scholars preoccupied with affairs of the imperial court and state, their significance has not always been appreciated. Some scholars in Chinese social history, however, are aware of the long and complex development of the community compact in later dynasties.³⁰ It had great appeal not only because of the prestige accruing from Zhu Xi’s endorsement but also because its voluntaristic and cooperative character accorded well with the emphasis on local autonomy and self-government in the Neo-Confucian doctrine, referred to above by Xu Heng as “governing men through self-discipline.”

Though it experienced many vicissitudes, owing to the difficulty of sustaining a spirit of both personal initiative and collective responsibility, successive reformers, including Wang Yangming in the Ming dynasty, saw the revival and reinvigoration of the community compact as the key to local self-government.31 In Wang’s case, the voluntaristic character of the community compact accorded well with his own voluntarist and activist philosophy, and it is not unnatural that there should have been such a meeting of minds between him and Zhu Xi on an institution of local self-governance that embodied so well their common principles. Outside of China, there was an even more impressive development of the community compact system through its widespread adoption in Yi-dynasty Korea, in the importance attached to it by leading Korean Neo-Confucians,³² and in its continuance down into the twentieth century as a key institution for the exercise of local autonomy on the principle of “governing men through self-discipline.”

Inadequate though the preceding is as an account of Zhu Xi’s view on popular education, it may at least offset the tendency to think of Zhu as addressing himself exclusively to the needs of the educated elite or to the elite’s control over the uneducated. In fact, few even of his writings addressed to the latter audience fail to stress popular education as the base on which higher culture rests, and it is probably only the greater difficulty of dealing with the historical details of times remote from our own that has made us slow to study and evaluate adequately the influence of Zhu’s views on education at the grassroots level.

In the scholastic tradition, Zhu was better known for his views on the conduct of higher education, on priorities in the curriculum, and on which texts should be read and how. His most important writings or talks, addressed to the smaller number who would have the opportunity to advance to the higher learning (or “greater learning”), are his Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu), his Commentary on the Great Learning (Daxue zhangju), and his Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy (Bailu Dong shuyuan jieshi). The first two will be brought into the discussion of Neo-Confucian personalism in the next chapter. Here, I shall focus on the Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy, presented in 1179, which became a model for Neo-Confucian academies throughout East Asia.

These articles begin with a reaffirmation of the constant moral relations that constitute the matrix of individual self-development:

“Affection between parent and child;

Rightness between ruler and subject;

Differentiation between husband and wife;

Precedence between elder and younger;

Trust between friends.”³³

The above are the items of the Five Teachings, that is, the very teachings that Yao and Shun commanded Xie reverently to propagate as minister of education.34 For those who engage in learning, these are all they need to learn. As to the proper procedure for study, there are also five items, as follows: “Study extensively, inquire carefully, ponder thoroughly, sift clearly, and practice earnestly.”³⁵

The above is the proper sequence for the pursuit of learning. Study, inquiry, pondering, and sifting are for fathoming principle to the utmost. As to earnest practice, there are also essential elements at each stage from personal cultivation to the handling of affairs and dealing with people, as separately listed below:

“Be faithful and true to your words and firm and sincere in conduct.”³⁶

“Curb your anger and restrain lust”;³⁷ “turn to the good and correct your errors.”³⁸

The above are the essentials of personal cultivation.

“Be true to moral principles and do not scheme for profit; illuminate [exemplify] the Way and do not calculate the advantages [for oneself ].”³⁹

The above are the essentials for handling affairs.

“Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.”⁴⁰

“When in your conduct you are unable to succeed, reflect and look [for the cause] within yourself.”⁴¹

Here the keynotes are self-discipline and consideration for others, extending into higher education the same spirit of voluntarism and reciprocity that informed Zhu’s approach to popular education. Again, we note that the process begins, as in the Elementary Learning, with a loving relationship between parent and child, a sense of intimacy and mutual respect. The statuses are not equal, but the relationship should, taking the fact of inequality into account, look beyond this difference to the underlying bond created by a shared life.

This view of filial piety as a reciprocal relation, in which the child responds to the loving care of the parent, was not an uncommon one at the time. Lu Jiuying (1132–1180), an elder brother of Lu Xiangshan, said in a poem, “The babe in arms knows love and, growing up, learns respect.”42 It is expressed even in the writing of Buddhist masters who took filial piety seriously. These include Qisong (1007?–1072), who wrote essays on filial piety as based on parental love,⁴³ and Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323), who put it this way: “All parents nurture and love their children. Therefore the sages and worthies teach us to be filial to our parents. Filiality (xiao) means imitating, serving (xiao). Children imitate parental nurturing and repay their parents with nurturing. Children imitate parental love and repay their parents with filial love.”⁴⁴

Thus these five constant relations or ethical norms represented a widely accepted traditional wisdom for handling human relations and their inevitable frictions. In reaffirming these norms, Zhu probably sought to avoid conflict situations in which there is either a direct contest of individual wills or the threat of coercion by official intervention. Individual self-assertion, pitting one will against another, often in unequal situations, as in parent-child conflicts, could only end in damage to the self-esteem of the defeated party. Coercion would tend to destroy self-motivation. Better to foster a spirit of mutual love that recognized and attempted to transcend differences, hence better an interpersonal concept of the self than a radically individualistic one.

VOLUNTARISM AND DIALOGUE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The social functions addressed in the first set of Articles give way in the second set to operations that are more intellectual and reflect the particular preoccupations of the Song scholar. One cannot say that they lack the general human relevance of the moral dicta or would be inappropriate in most human situations, yet the atmosphere of the school prevails; it would be hard to imagine peasants having much opportunity to “study,” “inquire,” “ponder,” and “sift” in the fashion Zhu suggests. The same is true of the note Zhu Xi appended to these articles, which speaks further to the condition of the scholar:

[I, Zhu] Xi have observed that the sages and worthies of antiquity taught people to pursue learning with one intention only, which is to make students understand the meaning of moral principle through discussion, so that they can cultivate their own persons and then extend it to others. The sages and worthies did not wish them merely to engage in memorizing texts or in composing poetry and essays as a means of gaining fame or seeking office. Students today obviously do the contrary [to what the sages and worthies intended]. The methods that the sages and worthies employed in teaching people are all found in the Classics. Dedicated scholars should by all means read them frequently, ponder them deeply and then inquire into them and sift them.

If you understand the necessity for principles and accept the need to take responsibility oneself for seeing that they are so, then what need will there be to wait for someone else to set up such contrivances as rules and prohibitions for one to follow? In recent ages regulations have been instituted in schools, and students have been treated in a shallow manner. This method of making regulations does not at all conform with the intention of the ancients. Therefore I shall not now try to put them into effect in this lecture hall. Rather I have specifically selected all the essential principles that the sages and the worthies used in teaching people how to pursue learning; I have listed them as above one by one and posted them on the crossbar over the gate. You, sirs, should discuss them with one another, follow them, and take personal responsibility for their observance. Then in whatever a man should be cautious or careful about in thought, word or deed, he will certainly be more demanding of himself than he would be the other way [of complying with regulations]. If you do otherwise or even reject what I have said, then the “regulations” others talk about will have to take over and in no way can they be dispensed with. You, sirs, please think this over.45

Here again, Zhu’s voluntaristic approach to education is evident—voluntaristic but hardly permissive. Ironically, and it is not untypical of Zhu’s fate in the hands of his followers, despite all of his own disclaimers these “articles” were often spoken of as “rules” in Neo-Confucian schools, or else they were supplemented by other regulations. Yet it is abundantly clear that Zhu himself sought to put the emphasis on the person rather than on the prohibition, recognizing that without the self-motivation, without the active “taking of responsibility oneself,” as he put it here, schooling would not achieve its aim of “learning for the sake of one’s self.”

It was natural for Zhu, addressing students, to move from the discussion of basic social relations to more scholarly concerns. In his experience, both were inextricably interwoven into the fabric of life. Yet as we follow his procedural steps, we become aware that he is also defining roles for the self that are by no means inevitable or universal. Indeed, with one exception they are not readily comprehended in the Five Constant Relations to which so much formal respect was paid. Instead, they are roles so naturally accepted within Zhu’s class and his cultural tradition as to be readily taken for granted: the roles of teacher, scholar, and official, which occupied much of the lives of the educated elite. It is to these roles that Zhu speaks most often in his major works, and it is in these contexts that “learning for the sake of one’s self” is given its clearest definition.

In Zhu’s postscript to the Articles we can see how his pedagogical method establishes personal dialogue, based on mutual respect, as the proper mode of learning. Twice Zhu makes the point that learning should proceed by discussion—and not just in dialogue between teacher and student but by talking things out among the students themselves, in a collegial fashion. It is through this give and take that much of the intellectual inquiry and exploration, sifting and judging, take place, leaving the student in a position to make up his own mind and take personal responsibility for his views and actions.

These same principles apply to the education of the ruler, which is best achieved through self-education in dialogue with others. In a lengthy sealed memorial to the throne with an extensive list of policy recommendations on current issues, Zhu lists as the first requisite for the emperor to engage in the “discussion of learning” (jiangxue). “The business of the empire is all rooted in one man and the control of that one man’s person lies in the mind. Thus if the ruler’s mind is correct, all the business of the empire will be correct.” To accomplish this, says Zhu, there is no better method than the discussion of all matters and issues so that their good and evil implications are brought to light before decisions are made.46

Dialogue and conversation had been traditional features of Chinese philosophizing, but the Neo-Confucian movement was especially noteworthy for promoting this kind of philosophical discussion. At court, Neo-Confucians placed special emphasis on the discussion of policy questions in the so-called lectures from the classics mat (jingyan), a practice that developed into a major institution at the Korean court of the Yi dynasty. With the rapid spread of Neo-Confucian education, a distinct intellectual uplift was felt in one country after another as new schools and academies became centers for discussion that stimulated the interest of individuals and actively engaged their energies in a common enterprise.⁴⁷ At the lower end of the social spectrum, this lecture/discussion method was popular in the Middle and Late Ming, even among less-educated folk in villages and towns,⁴⁸ and in the shingaku schools of eighteenth-century Japan.⁴⁹ Thus Zhu’s voluntaristic approach found its natural fulfillment in a social process that contributed to the individual’s self-improvement as well as to the edification of the group.

The central issue of “learning for the sake of one’s self” is highlighted by the reaction to these developments of the authoritarian statesman Zhang Juzheng (1525–1582), who tried to suppress popular lecturing and discussion in the local academies. In the name of “orthodoxy,” he came up with the speciously plausible argument that men of true character should learn for themselves and stand entirely on their own feet, without the need to muster support from scholarly colleagues.⁵⁰

The other local “forum” availed of by lecturers at this time, using the discussion method, was the meetings of the aforementioned “community compact” groups, wherein it was most natural to have an exchange of views among the members concerning moral issues in the conduct of daily affairs.⁵¹ In this we can see the consistency of the Neo-Confucian approach to education on both the literate and nonliterate levels, stemming from Zhu Xi’s dual emphasis on voluntarism and reciprocity.

HIGHER EDUCATION AS BROAD LEARNING

There is one other aspect of Zhu Xi’s approach to higher learning that could be called “liberal,” if by that one means tolerant or broad minded. In the Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy, the starting point of the learning process was “broad inquiry” (bo-wen), and Zhu Xi’s teaching, as it later became generally known, was distinguished by its emphasis on “broad learning” (boxue). Zhu’s scholarship as a whole gives ample evidence of it, but this quality is especially marked in the specific recommendations he made for the curriculum that would prepare educated men for government service. In his “Personal Proposal for Schools and Examinations,” Zhu argued for a curriculum that would be comprehensive and broadly representative of China’s humanistic tradition.52

For this view, he adduced two main “liberal” arguments. One is based on the political and social responsibilities of the educated man, who, Zhu says, must be learned in all branches of knowledge lest he find himself without the means of coping with the problems of contemporary society. The branches of learning that must be mastered if one is truly to live in the present and be responsive to the needs of one’s fellow man include rites and music, governmental institutions, astronomy, geography, military strategy, and laws and punishments. These, he says, are only the “major ones.”⁵³

Another argument given by Zhu is that the educated man cannot afford to be too exclusive in his intellectual loyalties but must take a broad, pluralistic view of the several teaching traditions that have emerged from the Way of the Sages. It is bad enough that some of the teachings survive only in fragmentary form, worse still that scholars think it right to concentrate on the study of just one classic or one philosopher. Zhu would even give consideration to Daoist and Legalist works, from whose strong and weak points he thinks one should always be ready to learn. This pluralistic approach contrasts with the more limited choice of Wang Anshi, whose educational and examination policies concentrated on just three classics, the Odes (Shi), Documents (Shu), and Rites of Zhou (Zhou li) (and for practical purposes mainly on the latter), as interpreted by himself.⁵⁴

Compare this to Zhu Xi’s curriculum, which would include the Changes, Documents, and Odes, as well as four ritual texts (the Zhou Yili and two versions of the Record of Rites by the Elder and Younger Dai); the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) with three early commentaries; and the Great Learning, Analects, Mean, and Mencius. Among the philosophers Zhu would include Xunzi, Yang Xiong, Wang Chong, Han Feizi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, as well as the principal Song masters. The next major division of the curriculum would consist of the major histories, to be studied for the light they could shed on the understanding of contemporary problems; these include the Zuo Commentary (Zuo zhuan); Conversations from the States (Guoyu); Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji); the histories of the Former and Later Han dynasties, of the Three Kingdoms, the history of Jin, histories of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Old and New Tang histories and the history of the Five Dynasties; and the General Mirror for Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian) of Sima Guang. A similarly copious body of literature, including the encyclopedic Comprehensive Institutes (Tongdian) of Du You, is cited for those branches of practical learning indicated above (governmental institutions, geography, etc.).

Anyone familiar with these works will appreciate the imposing character of Zhu’s reading list (parenthetically, not many scholars will have mastered it, and only a few such learned scholars as Huang Zongxi and Qian Mu will actually have read them all). Zhu himself allows that they cannot be mastered all at once, and even a three-year program of study would have to be selective. Nevertheless, in principle none should be left out. “Then,” he says, “there will be no classics the gentleman has not mastered, no histories he has not studied, and none of these that will not be applicable to the needs of his times.”55

These, then, are the studies Zhu would prescribe for the gentleman or scholar-official (shi). They represent the culmination of an educational system to which Zhu has paid careful attention on every level. Obviously, the full burden of culture represented by this curriculum is not to be borne by every man but only by the educated elite, who must accept the political and social responsibilities that, in Zhu’s mind, attach to higher education. In this respect, his system remains exposed to the danger of elitism, which attaches to any mastery of classical learning in both breadth and depth. But, as he has presented it, on both the nonliterate and literate levels Zhu’s liberal education adheres to the principles of voluntarism and mutual responsibility. He has also shown a strong awareness of the differing social contexts to which these principles would have to be adapted and of the need to formulate them in terms of a continuing process of self-discovery, group dialogue, and social renewal. At the highest point in that process stands the ideal of “learning for the sake of one’s self” in a form demanding enough to express the loftiest aspirations of Song society and culture. To this we shall proceed in the next chapter on Neo-Confucian individualism and personhood.